Border Patrol Series: Immigration & Business

June 14, 2007 | The business lobby has had a strong voice in past dialogue about immigration, but this year’s legislation left the wide-spanning industry largely unhappy. Businesses large and small, from fast-food chains to ski resorts, want legalization for the undocumented workers already here and a path to permanent residency for future workers to fill imminent workforce shortages. They also want to be able to select their workers based on the skills they need filled.

What they got in the compromise bill, however, was a temporary worker program that would send workers back to their home country for a year after every two years they work in the U.S., for a total of six years. Employers argue that would be disruptive. Some amendments also called for cutting the number of temporary workers in half or ending the program in five years. “This makes employers very unhappy because they’re looking for stable, reliable channels of workers,” said Deborah Meyers, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.

BUSINESS

Select Organizations that Lobbied on Immigration in 2006

Total Lobbying Expenditures, 2006*

US Chamber of Commerce

$72,740,000

Accenture

$4,026,221

Anheuser-Busch

$3,240,000

Wal-Mart Stores

$2,480,000

National Restaurant Association

$2,300,000

Coca-Cola Co

$1,060,000

Molson Coors Brewing

$917,000

Home Depot

$609,000

International Franchise Association

$580,000

DSNR Ltd

$286,000

*Total reflects all issues lobbied on in 2006, including, but not limited to, immigration.

The legislation would also require employers to complete what many call an overwhelming task of verifying the legal status of every worker in the country through an enhanced version of the electronic verification system. That requirement, said Mike Aitken, director of governmental affairs at the Society for Human Resource Management, would be ineffective given that the current system is already filled with challenges.

The legislation also pits industries that rely on low-skilled workers against those that rely on high-skilled workers, such as the technology industry, said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director for research at the Pew Hispanic Center. “Some [businesses] will have more interest in the lower-skilled workers, and others would have interest in the higher skilled workers. And whenever you have a limit on how many to let in, there will be some tug of war over who to let in,” Kochhar said.

But business associations seem confident they’ll have some sway when this issue comes up again. “Because of the great importance that the industry has on jobs and the U.S. economy, the [National Restaurant Association‘s] voice…is being heard on Capitol Hill,” said Maureen Ryan, media relations manager for the NRA, which has lobbied on immigration since at least 1998. The restaurant association, which represents a $537 billion industry, predicts that over the next decade, the number of jobs in the foodservice business will grow one-and-a-half times as fast as the U.S. labor force. At the same time, the number of workers between the age of 16 to 24—half the industry’s workforce—will not grow at all.

Business also has the leadership of a lobbying powerhouse, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber consistently spends the most of any organization in any industry on lobbying efforts, having spent about $317.2 million since 1998. Together, business services and associations industries spent $130.5 million on lobbying efforts in 2006. But these two subsets of business are divided in support for Democrats and Republicans through political contributions—the business services industry (advertising firms, management consultants and other services) gave 53 percent of its $26.6 million in contributions to Democrats in 2006, while business associations (such as the Chamber of Commerce and other general business boosters) gave 83 percent of its $2.2 million in contributions to Republicans.

Even as Congress takes up other issues, business will continue to try to shape immigration legislation. While the Chamber has stated that it supports many of the goals of the current bill (such as a path to recruit future workers from abroad and a path for undocumented workers to earn legal status), it has concerns with some of the details of the provisions, which it hopes to continue working with Congress to reform. The Society for Human Resource Management will similarly keep at it.

“We’re hopeful,” Aitken said. “We think people realize the shortcomings of the system, and we’re hoping they’ll continue to work with us and actually strengthen the bill.”

Media Contact

Viveca Novak
(202) 354-0111
press@crp.org

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